For years now, I’ve been watching most of the trick-or-treaters go to the house on one side of me, take one look at my house and walk right past it, and then go to the house on the other side.
I had no clue why. Maybe they were scared of my house or thought I’d give cheap candy (my house is a bit of a fixer-upper)? I completed my “curb appeal” projects; didn’t help.
Maybe they thought nobody was home? I not only have the porch light on, but also have the living room TV on, clearly visible through the (open!) front window, and it makes no difference.
Maybe they think I’m not participating (despite the clear signal of the porch light and jack-o’-lantern)? I put up a bunch of Halloween decorations this year, and it still didn’t help!
Well, I finally found out the reason, after hearing one kid scouting ahead yelling to tell his friends to skip my house: “there’s no bowl on the porch!”
…You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
Yep, unlike my neighbors, who had apparently just left unattended bowls of candy on their porches, I was actually sitting there inside the house, with the bowl of candy, waiting for kids to knock or ring the doorbell before I opened the door and handed it out. You know, like how trick-or-treating is supposed to work.
This is ridiculous. Kids these days are skipping viable houses with candy because they can’t be bothered to actually knock on the damn door and say “trick or treat” to the person who answers? Residents are expected to be too lazy to answer the door, and just put out the candy without even receiving the traditional threat first? With no actual interaction with the neighbors for the kids to show off their costumes, what’s even the point‽
I finally stuck a sign on the door saying “yes, you have to knock or ring for candy!” and that helped, but even then, some kids are still skipping my house because they apparently can’t be bothered to read the sign.
put a sign on your door next year, and report back on how well it works lol.
I see you did it this year, but doing it again next year should also increase the amount of visitors. We do a little science.
I put a bowl out once. The first kid that came emptied the whole lot into his bag and I had nothing left. So now I keep it inside and if they don’t knock it’s their loss and I get treats.
That kid will grow up to be very successful in the corporate world.
CEO material.
I had a doctor’s appointment on Halloween a few years ago. I was getting ready to go out, I put out a bowl of candy (nice mix of different chocolates) and went back inside to grab my purse and my test results for the doctor. I was inside for maybe 45 seconds? During which time I heard a couple kids come up to the porch, say something like “What do you think?”, and a slight scuffling sound. When I exited the house about 20 seconds later, they’d scooped the entire bowl clean and disappeared.
I knew I’d miss it this year. Honestly, just didn’t decorate so no candy. It got me thinking though. Maybe something like an automatic pet feeder can curtail the greedy little shits. Obviously, the feeder would have to be out of reach.
A sentry gun that fires candy corn!
Cheaper to just bribe a couple teenagers and give them slingshots 😁
If it’s worth doing, it’s worth over-engineering!
Most of our neighborhood sits outside with the candy and to hang out and see everyone’s costumes. They make it very obvious they’re handing out candy so when it’s knock houses, we’re less likely to go
My front door faces the courtyard, so you’d have to come through the gate, walk between the house and fence, and then around to the back to knock on the door. My house is one of the older ones in the neighborhood, with big trees and bushes and no porch light or anything. I’ve never had a trick-or-treater knock on my door. Maybe I should get a massive, highly coveted bag of candy just in case someone does - and then just give them the whole thing.
They go for the unattended bowls so they can just take it all for themselves. I dressed up as a decoration scarecrow one or two years after I was too old to trick or treat myself and held a bowl of candy in my lap out on the porch. Every kid that attempted to take the entire bowl, got a scare as I stood up and shouted scary things like “TAKE THE BOWL, I TAKE YOUR SOUL!”
This is the way. I vote op does this next year!
I went out with my kids and we went to a few houses actually that had lights on outside and inside, told my kids to go to the door and knock, waited a minute or so, and nothing. This was maybe half-a-dozen houses, so it’s not always a given that just knocking on the door will get results. The new “normal” is that people are either waiting outside to hand out candy or they’re leaving bowls out for kids to help themselves. Knocking on the door for trick or treating is a crapshoot and it’d be understandable why most kids will skip that. Compared to other houses, it’s more effort for potentially no reward, or, even if there is a reward, it’s the same as every other house.
Yeah, there’s always an oddly large amount of houses in my neighborhood who don’t hand out candy. They’ll have all the signals of participation: decorations, porch light on, interior light on and nothing. Especially on bad weather nights, the kids only really hit up the visibly active houses.
We usually go to the other side of the neighborhood too, where there’s greater participation (our immediate area doesn’t have a lot of kids, so not a lot of houses either). Folks probably resent us when we choose to drive due to weather, park and unleash trick or treaters. We’re not from out of neighborhood though (just don’t want to walk the extra blocks in freezing rain) and even if we were, why does it matter? I put out/hand out candy every year and don’t care who takes it. I bought it for the purpose of giving it away after all 🤷♀️. Last few years I’ve been driving to random street corners that look busy, and hand out while sitting on the trunk of my car, lol.
You are if course right and they are wrong. But it’s possible they learned this by being yelled at by some curmudgeon who sits at home with their lights on, watching TV on Halloween but screaming at anyone who dares ask for candy. And at all the houses with kids, who welcome them, the parent is out chaperoning their little tribe. Ergo bowl. I say parent because of course they’re all divorced by the time the kids are walking.
How to teach them right? Put a sign on your gatepost, not at the door, easily seen from the street. Remember, if they’re under 3rd grade they’re still learning to read, so keep it simple:
RING BELL FOR CANDY! 🎃🍫🍭🍬👻
Once they do that, you can remind them to say Trick or Treat, and/or admire their costumes.
Baby steps.
My guess is, the kids aren’t supposed to knock and interact with strangers anymore cause their parents are scared.
Some places, trick or treating has been replaced with a group of parents driving to a parking lot and their kids going from truck to truck.The latter has been popular in rural areas too for years, because the alternative is driving your kids from house to house. I would have made it to like 5 houses a year max if I’d tried to walk as a kid (and probably got run over, lol).
We’re semi-rural (multi acre lots often with houses set almost at the back of lots), this was my first Halloween out here, I was following the kids with a car cause it was cold and snowy. But apparently the other parents in the neighborhood all hang out and set up a flatbed trailer with a fire pit, lawn chairs, and beer just being hauled around by a UTV. I need to learn how to make friends as an adult.
In a rural area, that makes sense. I can also understand if a school or parent group organizes this for kids who live in unsafe areas. But it’s perhaps even more popular in affluent areas because the paranoia there is just that intense.
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I just got back from taking one of my kids trick or treating with his friends. It was great. My wife and I got to walk and chat with the other parents while all of our kids knocked on doors and shouted “trick or treat!”. Lots of friendly, generous, nice people. And lots of shouted reminders from us for the kids to not walk on people’s front lawns, to say thank you, to be careful crossing the quiet roads. There were so many other kids out too. It was pretty crazy, but in a good way. About half of the houses were giving out candy in some way or other, with only about a quarter having an un-monitored bowl.
Then on the way home we drove past a church that was having a ‘trunk or treat’ in their parking lot. That just looked sad. There was no excitement for going up to the really cool houses that were decked out in amazing props and decorations. There was no need to hone analytical skills to determine which houses were giving out candy and which ones probably weren’t. Just going very short distances from one car to the next getting candy. My kid asked why they do that. I said it’s probably because they are a closed community who don’t really want to associate with ‘outsiders’. Give me the conventional experience over that all day every day!
Finally, a day when it is acceptable for me to lure children into my van!
Vans don’t have trunks asshole!
(A paraphrasing of “Castles don’t have phones asshole!” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show …)
They’re doing trunk or treat now, when they go to a planned event hosted by businesses during the sunlight hours. I guess it’s still fun, but it loses the neighborhood charm.
My town does this at the city square. It started with all of the businesses around the square getting together to give out candy. Then the next year more people showed up for it. Then last year the city took over, did no advertising and almost no one showed up for it. Heck we went to another area to give out candy because we did not know. This year the city did it again, with zero advertising. There was a decent turn out for kids, but very few people giving out candy.
Our town is small and old, there are huge gaps between houses, much more so than when we lived in the city.
We hand it out - one chocolate and 2 non-chocolate. I do most of it because my husband lets them put their disgusting paws in the bowl and take handfuls.
ETA: you could put out a bowl with a little candy and reload it after each kid/group.
Not my experience. When I’ve had no decorations, my house was mostly skipped. When I put a few out with lights on, I got plenty of knocks and rings from both little kids with parents and young teens. And when I was cooking dinner one time, a teen could smell it and asked if they could have some, LOL. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You get between 5-730 in a lot of neighborhoods to do trick or treating. It’s a school night. I’m not spending a cumulative extra 30 minutes of my time watching my kid stand by the door so your old ass can slide off the couch and mosey over to the door and slowly talk to my kids individually about their costumes. And by some weird extension try to make small talk with me or a parent.
If your lonely, go to a bar. I’m trying to run these street with my kids and make some real candy profit.
Just put the fries in the bag, dude.
EDIT : Downvote me all you want. You’re the ones sitting inside instead of putting out a table in your driveway like every other house next to you. Social holidays evolve naturally and this is one of those times. Trunk or treating and drive way exhibitions is the new Halloween.
Damn dude, doesn’t even go till his kids say they’re cold. Why get a late bedtime on a holiday?
Growing up we always stayed out extra late on Halloween, even as a young child. An im not that old either.
My kids are younger. I’ve been doing this long enough to know which houses are going to spend time on each kid. Which is fine…except my kids and the neighbor kids I was walking through our neighborhood did have time for that.
If your lonely, go to a bar. I’m trying to run these street with my kids and make some real candy profit.
If you just want a bunch of candy, go to Walmart.
Okay. Or…my kids are walking around with a gaggle of neighbors and we are all socializing. And then we have to go “that one guys house” where we sit and watch as he wastes 10 minutes while we’re 2 miles deep into a neighborhood. And kids have finite energy.
But if you don’t get the amount of candy you want in the end (and even with a slow pace my kids have always had more candy than they could ever finish), just buy some more. Who cares about the excess of candy?
Because it’s the experience my kids want. And they don’t just “go buy more candy” considering their 10 and 7.
Ohhhh nOOO ten minutes???
Just drop your poor kid off with one of his friends and stay home yourself, you sound like you ruin everyone’s good time all the time.
Nope we had a great time. And they’re 7 and 10. Old enough to not want to bother walking all the way up to a door and waiting.
Downvote me all you want.
Oh, don’t you worry your sweet little head, we will.
Leave a bowl out with a sign that says “if the bowl is empty, please knock.” You don’t even have to fill the bowl with anything.
Classic “bait and switch” tactic. Guess OP isn’t an used car’s seller.
hey look buddy I’ve got some amazing advice for OP over here but I had another OP call me 10 minutes ago asking for the exact same advice so I’m gonna need you to make a decision right away.
ONE bag of sprite per child
Give out the best candy possible to the few who come by. The rumor of the amazing trove will spread. But then “run out” early so that some of them will miss out and learn the lesson for next year
King size candy bars, give out 2 to each. Everyone always loved that guy
Or give the option of a nice potato.
I once got a pear
I got a rock.
My kid got a potato this year! I was so proud.
Buying boxes of full-sized candy isn’t even that much more expensive than the fun-sized, and the psychological impact is immediate and dramatic. Every year I hear kids go “Woah, big candy bars!”
You’re tripping if you think the pricing is close.
It’s a little more expensive, but not dramatically so
Are you an idiot? You’re showing a picture per ounce. Do you know how Halloween works? You aren’t handing out candy by the ounce. You can buY a 300 piece Hershey Halloween candy bag for $25. Each kid can take 3 and you have enough for about 100 kids. How many regular size candy bars are you going to get for $25? Here’s a hint- it’s a lot less than 100.
Guys, we found the dunce that failed 3rd grade math. They figured out how to use a computer, finally.
The point of this entire thread is to solve the problem/attract trick or treaters. Not giving out bullshit size bars is a solid way to do that. And the number of those who visit OPs house are low anyway, so it doesn’t fucking matter that ‘bigger means less quantity, das tooped herpaderp’.
OP is trying to make kids enjoy the event, and the bean counter over here is like ‘we could save money by providing a shittier, smaller product, but more of it - though less overall compared to the standard, shh, nobody will know that - where is my promotion, boss?’.
To be both incompetent and a smug jerk is impressive though, that’s a skill that will get you places. Not pleasant places, but places.
My response was strictly to the guy above me trying to say giving out full size bars doesn’t cost much more. Learn to read the thread order.
At my house we get north of 200 kids every year it’s decent outside. Sometimes over 250. We’re talking about a kid every minute for the 3.5 hours we do it.
I just set up a table outside, invite a few friends over, drink some beers and give kids candy as they show up. Fuck having to answer the door every minute for 3.5 hours.
My older neighbors complained that the kids don’t have to come up to the front door and are skipping their house because I sit outside. I felt a little guilty, but honestly sitting outside (it it’s cold I get a fire pit going, not tonight tho) is much nicer. One older couple followed my lead this year and agreed. So I’m over it now. Welcome to the new world.
I do the same, minus the fire pit and friends but add in a costume. I’ve been a drunk pirate lately. I used to jump scares, but I find this routine more fun because, apparently, everyone is on edge and creep scares are jsit as easy
Normally I wear a costume, but mine fell apart this year.
We’re also a sit outside house. Luckily October is pretty warm nowadays (wait…)
I’d sit outside with a table, candy, and a sign that says “You HAVE to say trick or treat, change my mind!”
Lol I’m definitely doing this next year
That sounds like such fun! We got none this year. Maybe next time.
Yeah it’s a lot of fun. I had a few adults that were there the whole time, but then a bunch of other neighbors/friends wandered in and out throughout the night. Probably had a total of about 10 different people hanging out.
The last time I left a bowl on my porch, literally the first group that came took all the candy and threw the bowl into my lawn. It disincentivized from doing so again.
I did this and they stole the bowl too.
Same, bowl was stolen :( at least they didn’t take the table it was on
